My Thoughts

Why do ice cream trucks play 4bit music?

ertyu — 2008-05-13T19:25:41-05:00

I can't stand the horrible "music" that ice cream trucks blare. The tune is annoying, but the sound quality is just abysmal. It sounds like someone took a singing Hallmark card and hooked it up to the P.A. system from M.A.S.H. How hard is it to get some better music, stick it on an mp3 player and hook it up to a car stereo system. It might serve to attract people instead of repelling non-kids.

Restaurant Deliveries

ertyu — 2008-05-04T22:45:49-05:00

I've seen on more than one occasion a food delivery being made to a restaurant during lunch or dinner rushes. To me, that seems completely wrong. Not only is the delivery truck blocking the parking lot, but the driver is tying up staff and negatively affecting customer service. If I were a restauranteur, I would be rather upset at this going on. If I needed the food that day, I would expect it to be there earlier and delivered during off peak hours. The only thing I can envision is that this might be the telemarketer effect at work. They call at dinner hour cause they assume you are far more likely to be home at that time. For some restaurants, they might be closed before lunch and dinner and so deliveries are more likely to be completed at meal times. But you would think the restaurant and the company could easily work out a normal schedule for deliveries during slow periods before the rushes.

Branding

ertyu — 2008-04-27T17:31:26-05:00

I was rather amazed that the new thermostats installed in my apartment came with a large brand name tacked onto the front. I just don't get it. It's unattractive, doesn't fit with product and doesn't seem to serve any purpose. These are the very lowest end thermostats available, I don't think anyone would ever look at them and seek them out at the store, more than likely they would specifically avoid them. What makes it stranger yet is that the brand name on the cover doesn't match the brand stamped into the working components behind. To top it all off, the thermostats are inaccurate by at least 10°C.

As I thought about the branding on the thermostats, it strikes me that nearly every product has branding on it. Often it's a small, unobtrusive label but it seems that many products have added increasingly intrusive branding to the products' design. I certainly understand the traditional theories behind brands and their ongoing, if decreasing, effectiveness. But for many products, the brand really has no value, no recognition and the branding effectively decreases the products' value in my opinion. I've experienced situations where the branding ruined the products' design or look and made me look elsewhere.

The other thing that strikes me as odd, is the smaller players constantly changing brands and images. Even the larger players are often guilty of this. Without a clear, consistent brand and image, there is no hope of generating any benefits from the branding.

Old Technology

ertyu — 2008-03-15T15:28:00-05:00

What do you do with old technology?

I've been thinking about getting a new desktop. The biggest drawback is not spending the cash, but what to do with the old computer and monitor. I have a growing pile of old pieces of technology that are taking up way too much space. They all still work perfectly fine and I may find a use for them in the future, but currently they have no real market value and I have no use for them. The current plan is a non-plan, hold onto them until they are so obsolete that I could have no possible for use them in the future.

The Curse is Broken

ertyu — 2008-03-15T11:13:58-05:00

After Kelsey's and Montana's restaurants first opened in Winnipeg, we gave them some startup time to get settled and then visited. The first trip we ordered the 3 Cheese Spinach Dip. It was excellent. It's available from both restaurants basically identically. On every subsequent trip we ordered it again and were very disappointed each and every time. On one occasion the waitress dumped the entire tray on us and then disappeared and never returned. After a long wait, someone finally came and brought us cloths to clean up. The replacement order never arrived and we were consoled by having the dumped order comped. We've had orders that were over cooked and hard as a rock and the waiter wouldn't replace it. The appetizer was on sale one day, but we were charged full price and they wouldn't fix it. Once it was served with nacho chips instead of the flour based wedges it normally has. No matter what, it was just screwed up each time. We stopped ordering it. I'm not sure how, but we somehow got a certificate for a free order, but at that point, it was "off our list" and we didn't want to try it. So this week, many years after our last order, we pulled out the free certificate and put in the order. It arrived and it was perfect and excellent. The bill arrived and it was indeed free. Yippee! The curse is broken. Unfortunately the cost has shot up dramatically over the years and we probably won't be ordering it anyway. :(

Over Packaging

ertyu — 2008-03-08T12:06:16-05:00

I'm really shocked by the amount of packaging that many media items ship with.

I just opened a software product. It had a heat sealed hard plastic outer shell which contained a CD case wrapped in heat sealed plastic. The critical unlock number was contained within the cardboard backer on a sheet just slightly bigger than will fit in the CD jewel case.

Prior to that I opened an Xbox game. It came in shrink wrap, which held the French packaging and manual and another shrink wrapped package. This one contained the normal English package. Then there were 3 plastic security stickers that held the DVD style case closed. Finally there was a magnetic security tag stuck inside.

Before that another Xbox game. It came in a cardboard box, which held another cardboard box. The second box had a cardboard wrapper that needed to be removed before you could open it. Inside that was a shrink wrapped DVD case, security stickers on the case and security tag within.

Is all this really necessary? It's pretty clear after my garbage can is full from just opening one package to reveal a CD, that it is wasteful. And it certainly is annoying spending many minutes unraveling the whole mess.

Rogers at it Again

ertyu — 2008-01-21T15:16:05-05:00

Once again, Rogers has screwed me on a new contract. They failed to deliver what they promised at the price they promised. This time, I'm only out $1 a month for voice mail when I was told it would be included. It took 3 phone calls to find that out. On my previous contract, the same problem, I was told enhanced voice mail was included and it was not, and I was out $7/month for the life of the contract. They also refused to allow me to exit the contract without penalty. I've asked for the contracts to be provided in writing before agreeing to them, but they say this is not possible.

The second problem I continuously have is that various 'features' of my service 'fall out' of my account. My current contract is made up of a confusing series of charges and credits. The most recent issue involved one of the credits going missing from my account. I had to call up and spend several minutes on the phone to reinstate it. However the agent was very friendly and helpful on the phone. She was the also one who finally was able to tell me why my voice mail was coming up as a net $1 charge and gave me a one month credit ($1) for the trouble.

Finally, while traveling in Texas a few months ago I discovered that my voice mail did not function at all. I rely on the voice mail while traveling to screen calls to avoid the astronomical roaming charges. It wasn't till the end of the trip I found out it wasn't working at all.

Tumultuous Times

ertyu — 2008-01-16T19:12:07-05:00

In late November I was rear-ended at a crosswalk. Last week my appointment finally arrived to get the car fixed. Was driving a Sentra rental. Didn't really like it. I'm surprised a 2006 model still felt designed for a really short person, I couldn't find a comfortable driving position. It took under two days to repair my car. When I picked it up it was frozen solid after being put out too early from the car wash. Then it wouldn't start as they drained the battery. Been fine since.

The power supply in my desktop computer failed recently also. Luckily I had spares so I took my time to find the right replacement and ordered it. It arrived and within a week failed. Coincidently at the same time as my desktop became infected with a virus. Got both fixed up.

I've been living with some renovations to my apartment for the past 4 months and they continue. It's a growing annoyance and disruption as I constantly have to displace my belongings on short notice and live without some part of my apartment, not to mention the noise and early wake ups. Last week they ripped out the bathtub on less than the required 24 hours notice. It was said this would take 2 days. 9 days later and I could finally use my shower again.

Tidbits #2

ertyu — 2008-01-05T10:52:55-05:00

Extreme Velcro
I picked up some extra strong Velcro and its been great for a variety of jobs. I found a brand that is good for indoor and outdoor use and even good on brick and other rough surfaces. So far I've used it to hang a painting on my brick wall, fix a small crack in my car's bumper, mount an outdoor temperature sensor and hang a garbage can on my kitchen cabinets.

Winter Windshield Washer Fluid
I always fill my car with winter rated windshield washer fluid. My car has a washer tank ~5-6 liters and I end up adding another 4l every year or two. So it just doesn't make sense to put summer fluid in. I've never noticed a cleaning difference and if you're stuck with summer fluid in winter, you're just out of luck as it freezes. Adding the winter fluid at this point doesn't help as the different densities don't tend to mix. Being heavier the summer fluid tends to stick at the bottom, so you gotta use that up first. Someone at a service center put in some low grade summer fluid (freezing point ~ -5 to -10) and it has been frozen solid a lot recently, even when the salted roads are melting and piling up on my windshield.

Tidbits

ertyu — 2008-01-03T18:58:16-05:00

Tim Hortons Traffic
I certainly see the reason for all the complaints about new Tim Hortons locations and the traffic they generate. I frequently encounter slow and often stupid traffic entering and leaving the new location by my house. First thing in the mornings there is a line that extends onto the road. Big vehicles also park on the road in front of the location.

Always RMAing Something
I seem to be constantly RMAing products back for warranty repair. Mostly electronics. Its quite a pain, takes a lot of time and effort, costs money for the shipping and I need backup products to serve in the meantime. Don't know why everything breaks so often for me.

1-Wire Environmental Monitoring

ertyu — 2007-12-04T23:18:14-05:00

I have a sensor network I use for monitoring environmental conditions around my apartment. Here's how I did it.

To start with, I use a 1-wire network to connect several sensors for monitoring. I use Maxim/Dallas DS1920 Temperature iButtons and AAG Electronica TAI8540B Humidity Sensors for the indoor sensing. Outdoors I use a Hobby Boards Humidity/Temp/Solar Sensor in a Davis 7714 Solar Radiation Shield. The sensors are simply connected with telephone cabling. The internal iButtons are mounted to Maxim/Dallas DS1402D-DR8 Blue Dot Receptacles and the Humidity sensors are pre-cabled. A Maxim/Dallas DS9097U-009 adapter provides a serial interface to the 1-wire network and is connected to my server machine. Incidently, all these sensors are parasitically powered from the 1-wire network solely by attempting to read from them. On my server machine I periodically run the DigiTemp software to poll each sensor and store the results in an RRD (Round Robin Database) using RRDtool. I then use RRDtool again to periodically plot the data and produce the graphs displayed. System temperatures are garnered from the onboard motherboard sensors using xmbmon.

The Dreaded Car Shopping

ertyu — 2007-11-30T16:08:25-05:00

Shopping for a car is one of those things you hate to do.

It occurred to me that everyone I know has gone to a dealer looking to buy a car, only to get turned off and walk out and end up buying the car at another location. There has to be something wrong if at absolutely every occasion I can remember, the company has turned away a sale, thats just horrible business practice.

The big sticking point always seems to be price. No sales person ever wants to tip their hand too early and actually tell you their price. Give it up already, pick a reasonable money to earn, add it to the invoice and tell people thats the price you'll sell the car for. People are much better informed about the actual prices of the vehicles and what they are selling for these days. Even if they aren't, giving them a good price is likely to do much more to ensure loyalty and bring them and their friends and family back than eeking out a few extra bucks up front.

I know I specifically bought my last vehicle where I did because the salesman was up front with a reasonable price when I asked. I wouldn't have even stuck around if he wasn't.

Austin Trip

ertyu — 2007-11-28T15:57:23-05:00

In October I took a trip down to Austin, Texas to visit the distributed.net gang. I left on Friday from Winnipeg on a small Bombardier regional jet, a little different flight than I've had in the past. I made a quick dash out to find a geocache on my layover in Denver and made it back in time to catch the connecting flight. My luggage had an interesting trip from Denver, I watched it get loaded and after we landed in Austin, I watched it get unloaded. I made my way to the baggage claim I saw my bag walk out the door. As I chased the guy outside I waved a quick hello to Bovine, who had come to pick me up. Luckily after a few panicky seconds I spotted my bag and was able to retrieve it and we headed off to Cowhouse where I stayed.

Saturday we headed out to the Maker Faire, some interesting, some wacky and some weird. Caught a live full scale mouse trap game and an eepybird Diet Coke and Mentos display out in the hot Texas sun.

Sunday morning we dragged ourselves out to watch Nugget, Equiraptor and Petrdoubt in autocross. In the afternoon stopped to do a bit of geocaching. I broke my rules and ended up with a bit of poison ivy. The ivy down there must be different, because I didn't spot any of it.

Nerf and Moike arrived by Monday for a special Nuclear Taco Night, which was a blast.

During the week, we worked on some of the distributed.net Todo items, and got quite a few started and a good number finished. I think I might have scored the highest number of check-ins for the week.

Thursday we took in a Linkedin meet and greet. Austin has a much larger tech community than Winnipeg, and its cool to see all the tech related activities that are generated by that. It felt kinda odd going to a tech event and you actually recognized the companies people worked at.

Saturday we headed to Houston and met up with dbaker at his new house and to round out the meet map. The main purpose of the trip to Houston was to attend the Porcupine Tree concert and that we did with a long late nite return trip in the party bus.

The tail end of the weekend we finalized the notarization of everybody to bring them into the Thawte Web of Trust. Which means that I now am a Thawte Notary and can extend trust to other people. I also managed to become an Assurer for Cacert. Contact me for notarization or assurance on either.

Over the visit we ate at some good, interesting and unique spots. From BBQ to Tex-Mex to beer centric locales, a burger shack dock lakeside where we spotted some turtles sunning themselves, to a huge sprawling series of decks on a cliff side overlooking the lake, to an awesome multi-course fondue restaurant. The customer service was very good at most of the spots. I found it rather nice that there was a good variety of places we visited and all were reasonably priced, with good food and service, each well worth a return.

Please listen carefully as our options have changed

ertyu — 2007-11-13T19:56:03-05:00

It seems every time I call a company I hear "please listen carefully as our options have changed". I don't have the menus memorized, nor do I care that they changed. Its annoying enough to get through the menus without added crap to listen to. If I had to be calling frequently enough that I had memorized the options I would be looking for another company to do business with anyway.

Traffic Flow

ertyu — 2007-09-15T20:57:58-05:00

Flow of traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular on roads, in stores and elsewhere is something that really isn't paid much attention to in many cases. Some recent examples of flow failures I've witnessed. A) Construction blocks many small segments of one lane on a 4 lane road. People are weaving in and out of the lane to dodge the construction, resulting in generally slower overall flow of traffic. B) A buffet style restaurant has two lines that converge into one, the convergence point is such that normal human movement blocks one line from advancing. The lines also block access to the kitchen and other facilities. C) Specific entrance and exit locations, at first this seems like an improvement in flow, but research says, everyone is going to try to leave through the entrance they came in. I find this a major fire hazard besides a flow limiter. D) A government office with many different lines and absolutely nothing telling you you need to walk up to the little machine and hit a button to figure out what line to stand in. E) A modern shopping center parking lot. Vehicle and pedestrian traffic is often routed and bottlenecked to the same point at the front of the store. The parking islands, rows and general design are not linear or consistent and don't suggest any direction for driving.

Some solutions to these problems: A) In hallways walk as though its a highway, stick to the right side (or left depending on location). You'll often see this happen naturally in high schools during class changes. B) Figure out where people are going to and coming from and design accordingly. C) Consider the users and uses when designing, changing and altering facilities that encounter high traffic. D) Monitor usage and problems and readjust. Pretty basic stuff. But its the attention to details that really makes or breaks it.